Public Speaking Expert

A former colleague left to set up some kind of business to do with public speaking. He did have a fairly short-lived video channel where he posted up vlogs about software.

He was a terrible speaker.

There was one video where I thought his dialogue was so funny, I typed up the transcript, so I can laugh about it in the future. Well, I have found the notes. Here it is:

The reason for that is that a good friend of mine, erm, erm Neil, who I went to university with, erm, commented on Facebook, er and said, you know ‘what do you mean by “Digital Service”, surely it is just software?’.

Erm, oh erm and, I…yes it is just software, erm… but I…I’m trying to make a distinction, erm, erm, trying to make a point about, erm, er the nature of software and the nature of delivering software and that to me, erm software IS a digital service.

Erm, erm… you know… erm, there’s there’s, you’ll not have come across a software project that erm… simply, erm… you deliver the software and you walk away, erm that never usually happens, you you, you are actually delivering a service, because erm when you deliver software erm you sort of committed to support that software, you committed to provide a service, erm, for me, software engineering is actually all about, erm, taking a service and transforming that service, such that you are providing new features, new functionality, maybe you are joining things up.

Maybe you’re, erm, erm, you are seeking to refresh that service, you are seeking to, erm… ensure that service is continuing to deliver the value it’s meant to deliver. You are maybe looking to make sure the service is more efficient. You, you’re using, you’re developing some software, delivering some software to transform a service.
“Software” vs “Digital Service”

I hope you understood that, because I certainly didn’t.

People often add filler sounds like “erm” when they are nervous, but he had all the time in the world to write a script, record it, and edit it. It’s not a great promotion of his “skills” that he is selling.

Hoaxes and campaigns

There’s been a lot of hoaxes/campaigns/fake news in recent years, and sometimes a small Google search can easily disprove them.

I’m not even sure if there was an outcome to the campaign against the communication app House Party; which was accused of hacking into people’s bank accounts. Even one of my colleagues shared that one, and actively encouraged people to uninstall the app. I pointed out it was probably just a cause of reusing passwords, which also was the opinion of security expert Troy Hunt.

Another recent example is 5G causing Coronavirus.

Troy Hunt’s blog on Let’s Stop the 5G Hysteria: Understanding Hoaxes and Disinformation Campaigns is brilliant, so go and read his blog instead of mine.

Here is a summary of the headers:

Insight 1: You can tell a lot about the credibility of a claim by observing those attracted to it.

Insight 2: Understand the difference between people who have formed their own opinion versus those who are qualified enough to influence your opinion.

I enjoyed Zombieland, but not once did I stop and think “here’s a guy who looks like he’d know a thing or two about voltage-gated calcium channel activation exacerbating viral replication”. Yet here he is, broadcasting it to 2M Instagram followers. Fortunately, he’s since deleted the post.
Troy Hunt on Woody Harrelson’s level of expertise

Insight 3: Consider whether you believe a claim because the evidence supports it, or simply because you want to believe it.

Insight 4: When faced with alternative theories, consider which one is the simplest and therefore most likely to be true.

Insight 5: Question why you’re being encouraged to influence others and if you’re sufficiently informed to do so.

William Nonsense

While we are all working at home, teams have set up an optional call so we can socialise and try and keep the office banter. I was paired with William’s team. I have quite a few blogs where I comment on how poor William is at communicating; he constantly uses wrong terminology which causes all kinds of confusion.

A team member had suggested we have a main subject of conversation to start off with, so there’s always something to talk about. So we had subjects like “today’s news”, “sports”, “board games” etc. People were suggesting topics for Tuesday and the team agreed on “hobbies”.

It sounds like on Thursday arrange the talk for Friday to be bobbies lol
William

Okay, bobbies is a typo of hobbies. But, why would you phrase the sentence like that? Why not simply “tomorrow’s subject is hobbies”. Why does he need to mention today is Thursday? Why end the sentence with “lol”. It’s just complete nonsense.

Meetings At Your Desk Are A Problem

The Situation: We normally all work in an office, unless someone is working from home, in which case they will remotely connect to meetings. Due to Coronavirus, we are all at home.

One of the high ranking development managers makes an announcement:

I have had feedback from my teams that they are now finding they are at their desks for large parts of the day due to back-to-back meetings.
I recommend starting meetings 5 minutes later, finishing 5 minutes earlier; ensuring a 10 minute break between all meetings.
Additionally, do not book meetings during lunch time. This is more important than ever.
Development Manager

Alright, let’s analyse this statement.

For him and his management team in the usual office scenario: they would be at their desks, then move into a physical meeting room for meetings which happen frequently throughout the day. That means they aren’t just staring at their screens, and also get a walk and change of location.

Due to the lack of meeting rooms (which have been slowly removed from us over time), and due to the fact that the Managers had them booked for all their meetings, Developers would then have to stay at their desk and hold a remote meeting instead. This meant that they are at their desks all day. They are at their desks programming, then stay at their desks for meetings. So this was a problem for most people in the office.

With the Coronovirus, everyone is now at home, and therefore everyone has to have remote meetings. We are all equal now. All the managers are all crying about being sat at their desks all day.

The reason why we (developers only) booked meetings during lunchtime – is when we needed a physical room, and it was the only time managers didn’t book their meetings. If anything, now we are at home due to Coronavirus, I think I don’t care as much about lunchtime meetings because I don’t eat consistently at home.

Do you think things will change when we get back to the office?

Or do you think – since the managers will be fine, they will forget about how the developers have to work at their expense?

WordPress – The 100 Post Special

I probably come across like I hate my job and hate my colleagues, but the truth is that it’s a safe job and has a very laid back culture. Most people are actually really nice and we do feel close to the developers in the close vicinity.

There are plenty of great developers who really know what they are talking about, but that’s not that fun to write about. There’s plenty of other blogs that write about great ideas and genius developers. My blog fills a gap in the market. I’ve read many blogs that describe people’s experience with Imposter Syndrome; where they reach a certain level of success but feel like they didn’t deserve it. I often write about people that have had a certain level of success, but definitely don’t deserve it.

Some people at work occasionally do/say stupid things, and when someone does do something stupid, then it plays on my mind and I probably over-analyse. It’s usually the same several people that I rant about anyway, so it’s more of a minority than a majority.

After ranting to my friends about it, it does feel good, but then I like to put it into text. It’s like a diary of all the good/crazy times and will be great to look back on one day.

I often check the view stats and see no one actually views my blog; which is disheartening. Well, sometimes I get one view now and then. I enjoy writing the blog though, so I carry on anyway. I’m finding it very therapeutic to put my thoughts down. Maybe one day, someone will find it, share a link, and then it could gain traction.

A few weeks back, I got a notification that someone liked one of my blog posts. I check the view counts, eagerly anticipating that 1 view statistic, and ready to bask in its glory.

0 Views.

I think I know why this is. I reckon if you go to my main page and view the blog, then it doesn’t count as a view because you aren’t on a specific page.

I always like using RSS feeds, so there’s loads of blogs I read without contributing to the statistics (since I’m viewing it inside some software). I probably should click through more and show my support, maybe even write a comment of appreciation on occasion.

It probably means a lot to bloggers because it takes a surprising amount of time to write each post. “Likes” and “comments” will encourage them to write more content, and try and write content that their audience enjoys. So if you are reading this, interact with my posts in some way. Also, show appreciation to other bloggers that you like. If I don’t know what audience I’m reaching, maybe your other favourite bloggers don’t know either.

Mistake

At lunchtime, I overheard a conversation from the adjacent table. We had a visitor from another office and he was talking about his life to one of the managers; Jackie.

The visitor explained that he had an older brother but there was a 7 year age gap between them. Jackie exclaimed:

“You must have been a mistake!”
Jackie

The “joke” there – is that there’s usually a 1 or 2 year gap between siblings when parents plan to have a couple of children. A larger gap could mean the pregnancy was unplanned.

What an awful thing to say to someone. Even if you knew someone quite well, this seems inappropriate. To say that to someone you have just met; its unfathomable. To say it to someone at work; is probably a sackable offence.

Communication Channels: Pass It On

In our office, we technically have 2 companies but we are part of the same parent company. We have separate Slack accounts so cannot contact them through there, but we can contact them via email groups. Big announcements go on the Intranet for everyone in the group to read.

For some reason, occasionally, people decide to send communication in a “Pass it down on a ‘need to know’ basis”.

There were some big changes to the computer network and this was sent from IT to the Head of Development. He then sent it to the manager below him. He then sends it to several managers below him. They then send it to the people they manage. I finally get the email.

How long did that message take to be forwarded on that many times? Also, it only seemed like it was sent to people in my company. What about the other guys who work in our office?

I ask them if they have heard the news. They hadn’t, but would be massively impacted by the changes. If I hadn’t told them, there could have been big consequences.

Why wasn’t it sent to the mailing list for the entire office? Or put on the Intranet as an important message? It affects everyone. Sending the information to a small subset of people is just dumb.

It’s hard to believe how each member in the chain read the email and doesn’t question it. They just forward it on like expected. Then when it finally gets to me, I end up in a rage. It’s just an absurd way to communicate, I don’t get why people cannot see it.

What is the process when one of the managers is on annual leave? Does the sender then check who they manage and send it to them directly? Or do they just not get the message?

The Code Location War

There’s a repository that contains basic UI controls owned by Team A.

Team B have some specialised controls and suggested that the more complex controls in Team A’s repository are moved over to Team B’s repository instead. Both teams were happy and agreed on when to do this.

However, a Manager from Team C stated that he didn’t believe this was the right thing to do. So much so; that he has then had a meeting with some other Managers who also agree with his viewpoint.

So let’s recap here. Numerous developers in two teams have agreed who should own some code. A Manager from a completely different team, and has no reason to care where this code is located; only that it works – is unhappy. Not only that, but he has also gone out of his way to drum up support from two higher-ranking Managers who have even less reason to care.

Why is this even a thing?

So an hour long debate was arranged and the decision was that the code should be owned by the original creators; Team A. I didn’t know the outcome of the meeting at this time. However, no one actually did anything after the meeting. There again, it wasn’t even handed over properly in the first place.

I found this out when I heard one of the members of Team A talk about how they are gonna address one of the Bugs in one of these controls. If this was handed over properly, those Bugs would have transferred over to Team B. I pointed out that Team B should be doing this work, and one of the members of Team A agreed with me. However, the manager of Team A, who was on the debate and should know the outcome of the meeting – was confused why Team B had “moved” (well, duplicated) the code into their repository. (The code was moved after Team A and Team B had agreed to do so, and it was this that triggered the meeting to discuss it. The manager of Team A should have also known this).

She then had to ask the manager of Team C what the outcome of the meeting was, and he confirmed Team A should own the code, and he also seemed unaware that Team B had taken the code. He then said he is going to organise another meeting with Team B to discuss the outcome.

How many meetings do we need? Why wasn’t the outcome of the debate passed on to Team A and B? Why are two managers who were involved in the debate confused about the original situation?

Another meeting happened at the request of Team B. This meeting was hosted as a conference call on Slack, and as I always rant; there’s a 15 person limit. This shouldn’t be a problem, because why would 15 people be invited to this meeting? Well, we don’t live in a normal world. The funny thing is, the Team B member that requested the meeting couldn’t even join due to hitting the limit. Brilliant.

Slack Police

I’ve said in previous blogs there’s a team that are extreme Slack fanboys, and will try and drum up support for Slack, and hate for Microsoft Teams.

One of their team members questioned if anyone else was having network issues because his Slack conference call was horrendous. People started replying saying that they have long since abandoned Slack for conference calls because:

A) Sometimes members of your team cannot be heard

B) The audio quality is often poor

C) There’s a limit of 15 participants.

D) Calls cannot be recorded

It’s a simple fact that Microsoft Teams is vastly superior for conference calls. You can debate all you want about the text messaging features, emoji support and layout. Arguing for Slack conference calls is just ridiculous fanboy talk.

Quickly, the chief Slack Fanboy then posts something along the lines of:

“Please don’t post any Slack vs Teams debates. I don’t want to respond to these conversations”
Slack Fanboy

But yet, this is coming from the guy that made an emoji which is “Anti-teams” and will use it against anyone that mentions Teams. He also doesn’t have to respond to conversations on Slack; he can just ignore them. He often fuels the fire, but then complains when he loses the debate.

The Line Manager Handover

I’ve stated in a previous blog that when management changes hands, I believe the current manager should be the one that announces it. I felt annoyed when my team’s management changed hands and it was announced by the incoming manager.

It’s happened again, but this time on a personal level. I get a meeting request for a “Line Manager Handover” from my future line manager (Alan). Surely, my current line manager (Louise) should have told me this was happening, rather than me finding out via a meeting invite?

What does the meeting even entail? I thought it would be a pointless meeting and it was. I reckon a lot of things should be discussed between Alan and Louise, and not with me present in the meeting.

In the meeting, my future manager, Alan turned to Louise and asked “is there any problems with attendance or illness I should know about?”.

Ridiculously rude.

Obviously, it’s a good question, but not one to ask my manager as if I wasn’t in the room. How can she answer that truthfully anyway? She wasn’t gonna say:

“yeah, there’s a few times where he rings up sick but I have a large suspicion he is faking it. I was actually gonna flag it up with HR if it happens again.”
Fictional quote

I find it bizarre that managers often show a lack of “people skills”. Not a great start.